Search

I’ve always liked Ariadne, though it’s quite hard to put my finger on why. It shouldn’t work. The mixture of the comic prologue and the rather strange opera that follows it ought not to work. Yet it does. I think it’s that mixture of high emotion and comedy and the way Strauss contrasts the two and paces it. Unlike many of his pieces, it doesn’t outstay its welcome and, apart from Capriccio, it’s probably my favourite of his operas.

The current Glyndebourne production by Katherina Thoma is now having its second outing. I enjoyed its first incarnation and rather liked the conceit of the country house opera turning into a hospital for the serious second half. It still works well enough though I don’t think that it’s a production that particularly repays repeated viewings. It’s clever rather than profound and I thought a lot of the distractions in the hospital setting didn’t work that well and that Thoma misses a number of opportunities. With the comedians dressed the same way, you can’t identify individuals and, more seriously, she doesn’t expand on the Zerbinetta/Harlequin relationship as Loy does at the ROH. There’s a supernatural, operatic element bout the second part that this relentlessly earthbound, hospitalised production misses. I doubt that we’ll see it back.

There was still a lot of pleasure to be got from this revival, with its largely new cast. Lise Davidsen is, for me, the find of the evening, as Ariadne. She’s a very tall lady and has one of those vast, Nilsson-like Scandinavian voices that sounded, to me, to be crying out to get on to Brunnhilde and Isolde. This was a hugely confident debut for the sort of vast, voice that we don’t hear too often. It’s almost too big for Ariadne and I missed the sheer stillness and subtlety that Isokoski and Mattila have brought to the role but there’s vast talent here.

I was also much taken by Erin Morley’s cheeky, accurate, confident Zerbinetta who delivered a pretty faultless Grossmaechige Prinzessin. AJ Glueckert was Bacchus and sounded really good. He made almost light work out of it. It’s a bright, Straussian tenor with considerable heft but also managed to make a rather nice sound too. Bjorn Burger, back after last year’s good Figaro, sounded very fine indeed as Harlequin – he must be a great lieder singer. Manuel Gunther’s tenor sounded pretty good as Brighella.

I was less taken by Angela Brower’s Composer. It’s a nice sound, but it didn’t sound as though there was quite enough power there and she didn’t efface memories of Kate Lindsay and others.

Thomas Allen was back as the Music Master. Why would you want anyone else? Nicholas Folwell was a pompous Major Domo and I though that Edmund Danon made rather a lot of the Lackey. The female trio in the opera proper was gorgeously sung.

Cornelius Meister struck me as conducting very nicely. He got out both the chamber quality of the score and the climaxes. The LPO were on pretty good form.

So this was a jolly good revival. If you didn’t see it last time round, then I’d recommend a visit for an alert, intelligent, musically excellent performance. If you did see it, then, maybe, not worth a special journey.